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September 04, 2013

Well, it has been a while since I have put any postings up, part in due to the Labor Day, and the other reason being I have been extremely busy with my writing projects. But anyways, life is good.

As I was perusing the Internet for something to write about, I came across something which touches very much home to me.

That is my recent and ongoing cardiac experiences.

Apparently, a vendor known as “Bionym” has just launched a new product in which the EKG (in other words, your heartbeart as recorded by a graphing machine-this thing actually saved my life, because when I first went to the hospital, the ER doctor did an EKG on me. Based on the unique wave pattern, the attending cardiologist immediately determined that my left artery was totally blocked).

Here are some details into their new way of supposedly identifying specific individuals: “Toronto-based Bionym has just launched the Nymi, a new wearable biometric authentication device that uses an embedded electrocardiogram sensor for identification . . . The wearable bracelet recognizes unique ECG patterns and interfaces directly with mobile devices as a replacement for passwords and PIN numbers. Worn on the wrist, the Nymi keeps users authenticated until it’s removed. In addition, says the company, the Nymi supports simple, task-specific gesture commands using both motion sensors and proximity detection.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201309/bionym-launches-wearable-biometric-authentication-device).”

My Take

The basic premise of this Biometrics solution is confirm the identity of the individual. While some people may argue the validity if a heartbeat can be considered a true Biometric because of uniqueness, I can vouch for sure that heartbeats, at least seen on an EKG, are unique for each and every person.

This is based on conversations with experts such as my heart surgeon, cardiologist, the cardiac nurses, and even my own experiences in the ICU.

For instance, every day my heart beat was recorded from a EKG machine, and even then, my heart beat looked a little bit different each and every time.

There are a lot of factors here, especially the physiological component of one’s heart, and the variables from the external environment such as one’s level of anxiety, depression, happiness, etc.

This solution can be worn on the wrist as a band, and keeps confirming the identity of the individual, apparently until it is removed.

Also, a software development kit (SDK) will be made available to developers, so that specific applications can be designed per the exacting needs of each and every customer.

It appears that this solution is also very affordable, with a retail price at $79. So, now you may be puzzled why I labeled the top title the way I did.

Well, this solution comes straight from Canada.

It is only in countries like Canada, where the society is open to trying new things and are liberal enough, that such innovative products like this can be launched.

Try launching it here in the United States.

We will claim it is a sheer invasion of privacy rights, and more than likely, the market penetration rate will not be as high.

We liken to have wearing it as something from the George Orwell novel of 1984.

August 30, 2013

True, it has been around for quite a long time, and now it has probably a huge monopoly on the social media circuit.

Yea, there are other tools out there which are comparable to it, but probably a bulk of the population on this planet use this thing.

If anything, I have heard more complaints about Facebook than how good it is supposed to be.

One complaint is all of the changes which happens to it, without notifying the end users about all the changes.

And, when they do make the changes, our hands are basically tied, because we have no choice but to accept it.

I think its biggest flop came with that timeline profile. True, we did have a choice for a small brief time period, but in the end, all end users had to accept it.

And, all I heard was how bad it is (even I don’t like it).

The second major complaint is when Facebook blocks out your account for no apparent reason, and you have to accept their terms in order to be able to use it.

I speak this one from experience. I am a social kind of person, and I like to make friends out there. So, what is so wrong frending other people you don’t know out there? Just recently, this happened to me.

For two weeks, I could not make friends.

So then why does Facebook offer other people to make friends when they constantly show other profiles?

Stupid, very stupid in my opinion.

The third major complaint of course everybody heard about was the huge IPO flop, and how Zuckerman still profited handsomely.

I’ll leave that one to the financial experts to haggle over. Now, to the fourth major complaint which hits home to me: It’s planned use of facial recognition to identify and tag people based on their profile picture.

Of course, it is causing huge controversy, so here is the inside goop: “Facebook says it’s considering incorporating user profile pictures into its growing facial recognition database, the company revealed in an update to its data use policy on Thursday . . . Reported in Reuters, the technology currently identifies faces to offer “tag suggestions” in newly uploaded photos by comparing them to previously uploaded pictures in which users were tagged, but the new system would automatically add public profile pictures to its recognition database.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/facebook-mulls-facial-recognition-for-profile-pictures).

My Take

As you can see from up above, the idea of using facial recognition is to help tag people in photos.

So, now the gimmick is that Facebook wants to be able to upload profile pictures to their facial recognition database so it can use those pictures in helping one to tag people in photos.

Sounds innocent enough, but this has garnered huge controversy, especially overseas. For example:

*Facebook is being heavily scrutinized for its privacy practices;

*This facial recognition system is totally banned in Europe, due to privacy rights issues;

*Irish and German experts have confirmed that indeed Facebook did delete all facial recognition templates from its European database.

I guess Facebook’s craze for attempting to use facial recognition came because of its recent buyout of face.com, an Israeli based facial recognition company.

But come on, Facebook, could you not have thought of something else, like another Biometric technology?

First of all, facial recognition has its own share of privacy rights issues, and when you couple that with a social media tool, this is just a perfect storm to occur.

Facebook claims that it will give end users the right to opt out of the facial recognition tool if they want to, but in my opinion, our hands will be tied.

August 29, 2013

Today’s posting is a little short due to time constraints, but here we go. As some you know out there, one of my most favorite subjects is that of Biocryptography. You may be asking, what is this?

Long story short, it is the use of principles of encryption and decryption to further protect biometric templates.

It is still a new and emerging field in Biometrics, and not a lot of research has been done into yet.

This is an ultimate goal of mine with my new book due out next year. One whole chapter will be devoted to the concept of Biocryptography.

Well, it seems like today that Fijutsu, a leader in vein pattern recognition technology, has made some huge steps forward in this area.

Here are some of the details into it: “Fujitsu has announced the development of what it says is the world’s first homomorphic encryption technology which would allow biometric authentication and statistical calculations to be performed at high speeds without having to decrypt sensitive data . . . According to the company, this represents a much safer approach to working with biometrics and, also greatly increases processing speeds from existing homomorphic encryption methods. Existing methods use bit-by-bit encryption, which greatly slows down speeds and makes its practical application challenging. Fujitsu’s new method orders bit strings of data and then batch-encrypts it so the inner product calculations can be performed at a batch level.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/fujitsu-develops-super-fast-homomorphic-encryption-technology-for-biometric-authentication).

My Take

The techie details of it, to a certain degree, can be seen up above in the quote. But here are some interesting tidbits I picked from it:

*The processing speeds of verification and identification applications should pick up at least by a factor of 2,000 (now that is huge fast!);

*The actual cryptographic mathematical algorithm deals with the use polynomial multiplication, using ascending and descending orders of sorts (believe, I will figure this out and interpret in a later posting). In English terms, this simply means that the enrollment and verification templates can be compared against each other, without having to go through the process of decryption, thus saving valuable resources and processing times.

Yes, I think this is very exciting, and I will include this aspect in the Biocryptography chapter.

But, in the meantime, expect a posting elaborating further details and implications on this!

August 27, 2013

For those out there of you who may or may not know, I was born and brought up in the good old town of West Lafayette, IN.

It is located in the upper northwest part of Indiana, about 60 miles to the north of Indianapolis.

There is nothing too special about it, it is your normal, average run of the middle class Midwestern town. The people there for the most are nice.

I have not been in there in quite some time, as my roots have now grown into the Chicago area.

But, the past few times I have been down there quite some time ago, the town certainly has changed quite a bit.

Lots more people are moving in, and commercialization has now taken over this once, small sleepy town.

But there is one iconic landmark in West Lafayette: the fine academic institution known as Purdue University.

My parents were faculty for a few decades, so, the logical choice for me was to go Purdue as well. I ended up being an Ag Econ major, and my sister even ended up going to med school there.

Purdue has its claim to fame to many things, especially its engineering school. It is deemed to be one of the best in the world, especially with the number of astronauts it has trained since the 19060’s.

It has also been known to have one of the world’s football teams. But now, Purdue is going to have a new claim to fame: Biometrics.

Purdue, for a long time I believe has had a Biometrics major through its School of Technology, and even has its own Biometrics laboratory.

Now, there are going to open their own Biometrics research institution.

This will be known as the International Center for Biometrics Research, and here are some of the details of this grand, new opening: “According to a report in the American National Standards Institute, the ICBR designs and analyzes data collection related to identity management, human interaction with biometric sensors as well as usability issues . . . Purdue has long been an important partner when it comes to supporting innovation and the advancement of standardization in the United States and worldwide,” S. Joe Bhatia, ANSI president and CEO said in the report. “And in light of the growing concerns associated with the aging of the standardization community, the work done by Purdue and the ICBR to introduce a new generation of young people to essential fields of scientific inquiry and their associated standardization needs is very important and very welcome . . . Effectively advancing biometrics research and technologies requires collaboration between academia, government agencies, nonprofit groups, and industry,” Stephen Elliott, who leads the new center said in the ANSI report. “The ICBR helps to support that important partnership by pairing biometrics research with a curriculum that informs students about the central role played by standards and trade in the development and adoption of new technologies and fields of inquiry.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/purdue-launches-biometric-research-center).

For example, they tested the sclera recognition devices produced by EyeVerify (this is where the unique blood vessel patterns of the sclera can be scanned), and produced such astounding metrics as a FAR value of .002% and a FRR of under 1%.

They have also contributed heavily to the field of fingerprint recognition, such as force required of the finger on the sensor, and quality of fingerprint biometric templates.

They have also researched into how to bring transaction processing times.

Will I visit this place?

For sure now.

In fact, Anita and I will be headed down that way on a visit Kentucky, so this will be the perfect time to visit it.

August 26, 2013

OK, in the many years I have been writing on this blog site, I don’t think that I have ever mentioned Yahoo once.

The big players I have always written about have been with regards to Google, Microsoft, Sagem Morpho, etc.

But the truth is, even though we may not hear too much about it, Yahoo is still a juggernaut out there.

They still lead some of the way with their search engines, and especially with their e-services offered to small business.

Also, their e-mail system is still widely used worldwide (I am a big customer of their e-mail services, I have had my account since 2000).

Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but I know that Yahoo has had some rough waters in the recent past.

I can’t remember the exact details, but I know they did make the major headlines. And today, they make the headlines yet once again, but guess what it: It is about Biometrics.

In the years I have been involved with Biometrics, I can never recall Yahoo being involved with it. But today I guess, we make history of sorts.

According to the newswires, Yahoo has just swallowed up another company known as iQ Engines, whom is also involved with facial recognition.

Here are some of the details of it of what I can find thus far: “Yahoo! has just acquired iQ Engines, an image recognition company with a popular facial recognition API, soon to be included in Flickr . . . The terms of the deal have not been disclosed . . . “We are thrilled to announce that IQ Engines is joining the Flickr team at Yahoo!,” the company said in a blog posted late last week. “As longtime Flickr fans and fellow photography enthusiasts, we look forward to working on improving photo organization and search for the community.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/yahoo-acquires-image-recognition-firm-iq-engines).

My Take

As you can see from up above in the quote, this acquisition will be primarily used in Yahoo’s ever famous picture storage and searching services, known as Flickr.

The vendor whom has been bought our apparently has two prime services that they offer:

*SmartCamera: This allows customers to actually interact with photos taken by their smartphone;

*SmartAlbum: This is the service which makes use of facial recognition technology, especially the API they have developed.

It appears that Yahoo will primarily utilize the SmartAlbum component mostly for the Flickr services, as a means for tagging pictures, similar to what Facebook has tried to do (and unsuccessfully).

Also, this acquisition has been a huge financial gobble for Yahoo as well, as this vendor has received almost $4 million dollars in outside investments.

That will be nothing obviously but be a big boon for Yahoo down the road.

These are all of the details I could get it.

But stay tuned, although we may not have heard too much of Yahoo, they will make waves very soon in our industry with this new acquisition.

August 23, 2013

Today's blog is very short, due to being very busy and severe time constraints today. I was perusing the web of what to write on, and of course, I came upon the use of Biometrics as a means of security for the smartphone.

Today's content deals (or actually, very long, direct quote) deals with Precise Biometrics, and a new algorithm they have developed for the Android Smartphone.

Here are the details, and I promise, I will elaborate much more next week upon it.

"Precise Biometrics has just launched a new fingerprint algorithms designed for embedding fingerprint verification software on Android phones . . .

This product complete­­­­­­s our offering to the mobile market. Based on the expectation that fingerprint sensors will become a standard component on smart devices over the next 3 years, we offer a very competitive product with high performance, offering a better user experience to more people – the key to success within this business,” Thomas Marschall, CEO at Precise Biometrics said. “We consider the fact that Fingerprint Cards chooses to integrate our technology with their sensors as a confirmation of the high potential in the segment for mobile embedded fingerprint technology. Together with our existing products such as Tactivo and our mobile development toolkits, we are now able to offer a complete range of products that address mobile security issues on all types of devices for a very broad range of requirements.”

August 22, 2013

On dreary rainy day like it is here in Chi-Town today, any good news is welcome. Today, I bring some good news, and it comes from our own industry of Biometrics.

On numerous occasions, I have written about a particular vendor known as “Fingerprint Cards”.

Their claim to fame is that of manufacturing fingerprint sensors, and just very recently, they just announced a huge order for their product.

The details: “Rarely does a day go by that Fingerprint Cards doesn’t announce a massive production order, and the company has just announced its largest order so far — 3.1 million swipe sensors – for the Asian mobile market . . . the order is set to be delivered immediately and will be used for smartphones and tablets . . . earlier this week, we announced our first mobile phone launch ever, in Japan,” Johan Carlström, President and CEO of Fingerprint Cards AB said. “This new order from our partner CrucialTec targets the Japanese market, but also the initial ramp for other additional launches in other Asian markets.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/fingerprint-cards-lands-massive-production-order-for-swipe-sensors).

My Take

3.1 million sensors is a huge order-and in fact, it could very well be one of the biggest orders yet in Biometrics industry history, at least here in the United States.

Much of the demand for this sensor has been the explosion of the smartphone market in Japan, as an added layer of security.

As you can see from the above quote, it is with much anticipation and fanfare that this massive order could propel this vendor into other Asian markets, in order to help fulfill their thirst for smartphones.

On a more amusing note, one of the smartphones which carried this vendor’s sensor had the theme of Disney on it.

In the world of fingerprint recognition, there the most common sensor used is that of the optical based one.

With this particular brand, all an end user has to do is just basically touch the sensor with the tip of the finger, and the enrollment and verification processes will be started immediately.

I think this is probably the first time I have read about swipe sensors being used.

This type of sensor is primarily used for large scale identification, one to many (1:N) searches, primarily in law enforcement applications.

Technology has sure come a long way. It is interesting to note that the demand for smartphones, in the future at least, may not be so much driven by convenience and mobility.

It could very well be driven by the increased demand for security, in particular biometrics.

Biometrics in this case would not be what I call a direct demand, rather would be an indirect demand, in order to fill the thirst for increased security.

Whatever the reasoning or logic, Biometrics will certainly start to play a huge role in smartphone technology in the coming years.

So, why do I mention this fellow at all? Well, apparently, his county is now using Biometrics to further strengthen law enforcement protocols at Maricopa County. The details: “MorphoTrak has partnered with Identity One to deliver BIOGUARD, its system for identifying prison inmates by fingerprint, to the Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff’s office . . . Using MorphoTrak optical sensors, BIOGUARD captures two index fingerprints from inmates upon entering the prison system, and then verifies their identity when they are later released. The system also displays a photograph of the inmates for visual verification.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/morphotrak-partners-with-identity-one-for-biometric-inmate-identification-in-arizona).

Now, there is nothing new about Biometrics being used in law enforcement, but one of the main reasons cited for using a Biometrics system in Maricopa County, is that an inmate actually escaped.

But guess how . . . by convincing another inmate to give his identity? I scratch my head at this one, because I just don’t get it.

August 20, 2013

Why do I call Forensics the forgotten market about security? Well, truthfully, I am talking from own experience.

I think the last time I really paid attention to anything forensics related was at the height of the OJ trial many, many years go.

This is when the many forensics experts made their limelight onto the television scene, especially that of the much noted forensics expert Dr. Henry Li.

And of course, who could ever forget that famous closing line: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”??

To the average American, the image of forensics conjures up images of crime show TV programs, especially that of CSI.

But look beyond that, and the field of forensics is actually a very technical one, very detailed, and painstaking area of law enforcement.

This is where all of the evidence which was overlooked for some reason at the crime scene the first time is combed through again and found.

This could be anything from collecting extremely minute blood droplets which can barely be seen, to bullet residuals left hundreds of feet away from the actual crime scene, collecting strands of DNA evidence, etc.

Now, I am nowhere near being a forensics expert, but I know for sure that Biometrics is fast becoming an integral component of forensics.

This is so because of latent fingerprints.

For example, when a crime scene is first investigated, the experts usually go after the fingerprints.

But very often, depending how quickly law enforcement can get there, and what the environmental conditions are like, fingerprints can degrade quickly over time.

As a result, forensics experts have to revisit the crime scene in order to search thoroughly for these types of fingerprints.

Technically speaking, these are what is known as “latent fingerprints”.

The positive identification of these latent fingerprints is fast becoming a booming trend in the Biometrics industry (wanna more about the technology? Buy my upcoming book!!!).

Some inside detail: “According to a newly-published report, the forensic technologies market, which includes biometrics, has been valued at USD $8.3 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.4% from 2013-2019, to a total of US $17.7 billion in 2019 . . . Also, as the report notes, the DNA profiling segment is expected to grow at an 11% CAGR in the same period. Currently, in terms of geography, North America and Europe have a higher market share, but going forward, it’s expected that Asia Pacific and RoW regions are expected to gain about 60% of the global pie . . . Currently, the market is dominated by the Government and as the report also indicates, publicly-funded forensic labs account for about 60% of the forensic technologies and services market share.” (SOURCE: http://www.biometricupdate.com/201308/forensic-technologies-market-to-reach-17-7-billion-by-2019-report).

My Take

It comes of no surprise to me that the DNA component and the government component are the biggest boomers for the DNA market.

After all, aren’t law enforcement agencies all government agencies in the end, whether it is local, state or federal?

Also, it is DNA at the crime scene, along with fingerprints, which is one of the most sought after pieces of evidence.

After all, it can provide the most irrefutable proof as to the innocence or guilt of a suspect.

The United States, I believe at the present time, probably has amongst the most sophisticated forensics tools around, that is why it has the huge market share.

But don’t discount Biometrics at all-given the huge overlap it has with forensics, and new emerging technologies, it will be at the forefront very soon.

August 16, 2013

My recovery continues to go well (yea, I know its been eight months, I get slack from people at times telling me why it is taking so long-well you know what, I had a near death experience, and a hugely major operation to prevent from dying), the book goes well (I should have Chapter 3 done hopefully hopefully by the end of the month-almost finished up on the project management section), and the webinar content goes well (close to a third of the way through with that one).

And plus, I must have forgot to mention that late last week, but my next article, entitled “Iris Recognition-Part 2” will be out in print later this year (I think in mid-October).

This will probably be one of my longest articles ever, calculated by the editor at about six pages.

OK, so on what topic are we going to close out the week on?

How about voice recognition.

This is one of those biometric technologies, we really don’t hear too much about, as it is a very specialized type of technology.

But, the market potential for it is tremendous.

When compared to the other Biometric technologies out there, it is very simple to use and install, but best of all, it can fit into the budget of most SME’s, and the end user can be trained very easily into its use.

It is at the present time finding heavy use in the financial sector, as customers in less than a second can be immediately verified, especially if an important financial trade has to be made, a wait time in minutes can literally mean a huge profit or a huge loss.

And eclipsing on this trend is the use of voice recognition for call centers.

The Bank of New Zealand is going to be using this particular technology, set to be deployed later in the year.

*The government of New Zealand also introduced “Real Me”, where citizens can use multimodal biometrics to confirm their identity when claiming entitlements and benefits;

*The tax agency in New Zealand, the Inland Revenue Service, has claimed that up to 400,000 New Zealand citizens have registered into the voice recognition system to get their tax refunds (how come the Internal Revenue Service here can’t do that?);

*The National Australia Bank has also adopted the use of voice biometrics into its financial centers;

*According to a recent survey, up to 90% of respondents would love to see voice biometrics implemented into their smartphone in lieu of the traditional passwords and PIN numbers;

*The market share for voice recognition will reach up to $3 billion by the year of 2018; and that the United States will be the lead market for this;

*The countries in Asia will lead the charge for the use of voice recognition in financial transactions.

Me, personally, I believe that the biggest growth for voice recognition will be for virtual payments made on the smartphones?

Why?

The smartphone will become the next trend in the way we shop.

It’s just that simple. Who knows, maybe the iPhone 7 will lead the charge for this???